An Arkansas woman is suing over a trooper's use of a PIT maneuver during a traffic stop last July. Her vehicle was flipped onto its top after the PIT caused it to spin out and hit a concrete barrier dividing the highway.
Nicole Harper, 38, was two months pregnant at the time of the July 9 incident on Highway 167 in Jacksonville, AR.
Her lawyer Andrew Norwood said that Harper was told at the Emergency Room that her unborn baby had been killed in the crash. The doctor was in error and Harper's daughter was born in February, NBC reports.
Harper was going 84 mph in a 70-mph zone when Trooper Rodney Dunn turned on his siren and flashed lights for her to pull over, according to her lawsuit filed last month in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
Harper's legal team says dashcam video from Dunn's patrol vehicle shows her slowing, activating her blinkers and changing lanes to the right, so she could eventually pull over, Norwood said.
The trooper apparently believed she was running.
The trooper's action "constituted a reckless attempt to engage in conduct that created substantial risk of physical injury," the lawsuit says.
In the video, the trooper approached Harper's flipped car and as he helped her out of the wreckage asked: "Why didn't you stop?"
"Because I didn't feel like it was safe," she answered
The Arkansas drivers license manual urges motorists to pull "to the nearest/safest spot out of the traffic lane" when police are exercising a pullover.
Arkansas State Police declined NBC's request for comment.
